Rabbi Aaron Raskin showed his support for Israel by buying Ahava cosmetics at Rickey’s on Montague Street this week, bucking Israel opponents who rallied outside the shop last week.

Shliach to Brooklyn Heights, Rabbi Aaron Raskin went shopping simply to “make a stand” against an anti-Israel demonstration. Rabbi Raskin publicly bought Ahava cosmetic products, making a stand in support of Israel

Shliach Defends Israeli Cosmetic Products

Rabbi Aaron Raskin showed his support for Israel by buying Ahava cosmetics at Rickey’s on Montague Street this week, bucking Israel opponents who rallied outside the shop last week.

Shliach to Brooklyn Heights, Rabbi Aaron Raskin went shopping simply to “make a stand” against an anti-Israel demonstration. Rabbi Raskin publicly bought Ahava cosmetic products, making a stand in support of Israel

By Ben Kochman for The Brooklyn Paper

BROOKLYN — One of Brooklyn Heights’s most-influential Jewish leaders fought back against an anti-Israel rally last Friday by doing what influential rabbis do in such situations: he bought cosmetics.

Rabbi Aaron Raskin of Congregation B’nai Avraham picked up some Ahava products at Ricky’s cosmetics shop on Montague Street just a few days after the store was picketed by protesters claiming that selling the West-Bank-made lotions supported Israel’s “illegal” occupation of the West Bank.

Raskin said he did his shopping simply to “make a stand” against the protesters. He also e-mailed his 2,000-person congregation urging members to support Ricky’s and Israel by buying Ahava goods, which are made in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

“It is inescapable to see [the protest] as anything other than an expression of anti-Semitism,” Raskin said in the e-mail.

On Tuesday, he made his purchases and even blessed the staff of the hipster cosmetic store on the way out.

“Anyone who buys Israeli products, including Ricky’s, will receive many blessings,” he said.

6 Comments

  • emeti

    if you can’t make it to ricky’s store, then ask a friend to pick some Ahava products up for you and pay them back.
    THANKYOU ……yashar koach to Rabbi Raskin for bringing this zechus to us. We will try to live up to what you are demanding, that we all try to buy the Ahava products from this store and be proud Jews.

  • god-s right hand man

    it is beyond human comprehension
    some concerns of average joe
    israel’s seeming hypocritical ways of life and business
    israel ideally should be a biblical/chasidic wonderland with a minimum of pollution and technology

  • A reader from Brooklyn Ave.

    to #4: it’s in Downtown Brooklyn
    to #5: can you translate that into English please? I have no clue what you’re saying.